Background
Otto Albert Tichý was born in Martínkov, Moravia, in a Catholic family of a provincial teacher.
composer educationist organist university professor
Otto Albert Tichý was born in Martínkov, Moravia, in a Catholic family of a provincial teacher.
He studied different instruments and played the organ from an early age. Tichý initially studied organ, Gregorian chant and composition, then contrapuntalism and concord.
He began composing as a boy. He became a devoted student of Vítězslav Novák at the Prague Conservatory. However, he interrupted his study to work nine years at the most spiritual publisher of this time, Josef Florian, solely for room and board.
At Schola Cantorum he got the opportunity to experience music from the 16th to the 18th centuries in vocal polyphony.
After he successfully finished his study, he lived as a private music teacher and organist. In 1936 he returned to Czechoslovakia.
He taught choir, Gregorian chant, improvisation, organ accompaniment, conducting, Latin and French. He left Prague Conservatory at age 75.
He also resigned as the organist at Saint Vitus.
Until the end of his life he wrote music and translated books Otto Albert Tichý died at 83, close to his organ-loft. Few of the composer"s works are performed regularly today.
His best known pieces are the Missa festival in honorem Sti Alberti Magni, Missa pastoralis in honorem Jesu Infantis in Praga or A Notre-Dame du Chene, and Tantum ergo sacramentum, and Avenue Maria, and some other vocal compositions and very nice compositions for small chamber brass or string ensembles.
Tichý"s works include orchestral music, chamber music, piano music and songs.